Challenge!
by Cat McDougall
Summary: A ficlet for a challenge. What did the Black think when the forest fire reached him and Alec asked him to save the other racehorses from the International Cup?


**Disclaimer:** _The Black Stallion_ is the property of Walter Farley. I am merely borrowing it for a moment.

**A/N:** This is a ficlet written during the book _The Black Stallion and Satan_. It was written as a challenge from **Senashenta**. I hope you enjoy.

Challenge!

Sleep.

Sleep is good. It's been a respite from the day that is filled with running, finding food, and trying to keep dominance. Although, here my boy won't let me fight for that dominance. I don't understand that, but for my love for him, I'll obey.

That colt, the one that looks like me, still smells of my old home, the warm sands and grit filled winds. He's begun to smell more like humans, more like this soft life he has now, but I can smell the desert on him.

Closing my eyes, I try to return to the sleep that had been disturbed by one of those pampered, unwilling-to-fight stallions down the aisle. My boy had left me here, trusting that I wouldn't fight. I won't. But only because of my love for him.

I huff out my sides in a heavy sigh, shifting my weight and cocking my one hip. My boy had murmured to me in his way, trying to tell me something, but I don't know what it was. I just want to run. I want to roll in the warm earth and scratch the itch growing on my back.

I am just about asleep when the smell reaches me. A disturbing wisp of smell, almost intangible. Am I mistaken? I sniff again, but the wind has shifted. I stir in my stall, trying to smell the air once more.

Then, it blasts through the doors.

Narr!

We must go. There must be a way out of here!

I scream, bashing at the wood confining me. I cannot stay here! None of us can!

I sniff again. Men! There are men coming. They must let us out. I swivel my ears forward, I can hear them yelling and talking to one another. My stall is the furthest down the line. I slam my hoof against the door again.

I scream a challenge, one echoed by the others here. Now, however, I will not fight. Not the other stallions anyways. No, I will fight the _narr_ that comes our way.

Where is my boy? Why is he not here?

The other stallions are being let out of their stalls now. I can hear them running into the distance. My ears prick and I whistle again, hearing the slamming of a door. A smell drifts on the breeze as that colt who looks like me is released. I can smell him. My boy!

Then the men are at my stall, the latch releases….

I scream once more and plunge into the smoke filled aisle, racing for the open air, and where I can smell my boy.

I scream once more as a weight grabs at the cloth halter on my head, a sniff and I can tell it's my boy.

I stop as the old one, short as my boy comes into view. I know him. I can trust him. My boy clings to my halter. I snort, shifting. I can smell the fire. It's reached the barn now.

I also smell the others. I'm free of the confines of wood. I can _challenge_! I thrust upwards onto my back hooves, screaming my challenge to the pampered stallions, daring them to answer me and come fight for supremacy. They don't. I scream again and another answers me!

Yes! Come fight me!

I can feel my boy trying to do something. The other, older men around him are saying things, but I don't listen. I want to fight!

I grunt as my boy's weight lands on my back. Moving to his signals, we head toward the other horses. But can I fight with him there? I _will_ fight with him there.

Leaping, I head for the other horses, prepared to do battle. Yet, my boy stops me. Why! Why must I stop! The orange reflects off my hide, shining it oddly in the flickering and wavering death of flames.

My boy sends me after the others. I herd them as errant foals. The fools! Can they not smell the smoke and soot in the air! Are they so foolish?

Together, my boy and I move them toward a lane. They fear me and this is good. The oranges and angry reds of the fire slide over my hide, burnishing it oddly. I long for the sun to turn it as dark as ebony as it had so often in the past.

I scream again as finally, the fire draws more of my attention than the other stallions. I cannot do as he asks! No! I cannot head straight into the teeth of the inferno. For my boy, I will. I herd the others down the lane, letting him guide me, trusting him not to harm me.

Now, instead of the tame race, he had asked me to run on the silly dirt oval; now we run a race against the forest fire turning my hide an almost copper colour.

I whistle at the others. Come! Let us _run_!

—Fin—


End file.
